Ok, this is gonna be a bit long as I want to be sure to post all the details. To start, my CPU burned out. I was running an Athlon XP, and I let the sink get pretty dirty and overheated it. Strapped for cash at the time, I bought a cheap Sempron and motherboard. Moved everything over, and all was fine. One day not too long after, the PSU fried. I wasn't surprised, I've had them go out before. I just bought the biggest one I could get locally, which was only 300 watts. Enlight is the brand. A couple of days later, it wouldn't start up. I unplugged it and plugged it back in. Heard a pop from the plug, and it worked again. Went on for a month like that until it burned out. I too it back to get it checked, and the guy there said it was defective and replaced it. That PSU burnt out the next day. I knew then it was my problem w/o a doubt. Thought I would figure out by process of elimination what wwas wrong. I had three old PSUs, so at the risk of hardware damage, I ran the PC off of them. I plugged a 90 watt into the mobo, and an old AT 150 into the two hard drives and two DVD drives. After a few days, the 150 burned out. Then, I plugged just the two hard drives into another 90. Ran like that for awhile with no problem. Then I plugged one DVD-Rom in also, leaving only my DVD burner out. No problems. I let it stay like this for three weeks, as I wanted to be sure before buying another PSU. The fan on the one plugged into the mobo started grinding. It is about six years old, so no surprise. One day, it popped. My wife went down and bought another 300 watt Enlight. I plugged it into the mobo and two hard drives. The next day, it made a loud popping noise and stopped working. I unplugged it and plugged it back in. It worked, but I knew it wouldn't last. Today it fried out. As I type this, I'm running the mobo and one hard drive off of ninety watts. I have the before mentioned Sempron, one stick of RAM, and an ATI 9600 card. What is causing this? How can I figure it out? Why didn't the crappy little PSUs burn out?I have it run through a surge protector. I can't figure it out, and I can't afford to keep buying PSUs. Yes I know I nned more power, but I can't believe two drives and the mobo is overloading a 300 watt supply. Thanks in advance for any help. You guys have always come through for me before. Please excuse the formatting of my post. Typed in a hurry, then went back to add paragraphs. I just seem to erase everything when I try though,heh. JC

Enlight makes very good PSUs. Your PSUs may be burning up because your power demands may be more than 300w. Another thing to consider is that a defective component is burning up your PSUs. How good is your power input into the PSU? Do you have enough voltage and current?

http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/ That might help you figure out what you need. Celeron Eater

It almost has to be a componant I would think. I can't see how 300 watts wouldn't be enough for two hard drives and the mobo/cpu. But how to figure out the problem? And why doesn't the 90 watt PSU burn out? The input is just a normal 110 house plug. Unless the surge protector could somehow be causing trouble? One hard drive and the mobo/cpu is new. However, I never had this particular problem before I replaced them...